ACW

Sunday, 9 August 2015

Under the Radar - the Bible as a source of literature by Ros Bayes

“The trouble with you lot is, you’ve never believed a word
God said, you’ve never believed anyone who spoke on his behalf, and now you’re
out to get me,” said Jesus, not ever.

Instead, He said, “A man once planted a vineyard, fenced it round,
dug out the hole for the wine-press and built a watch-tower. Then he let it out
to some farm-workers and went abroad. At the end of the season he sent a
servant to the tenants to receive his share of the vintage. But they got hold
of him, knocked him about and sent him off empty-handed. The owner tried again.
He sent another servant to them, but this one they knocked on the head and
generally insulted. Once again he sent them another servant, but him they
murdered. He sent many others and some they beat up and some they murdered. He
had one man left—his own son who was very dear to him. He sent him last of all
to the tenants, saying to himself, ‘They will surely respect my own son.’ But
they said to each other, ‘This fellow is the future owner—come on, let’s kill
him, and the property will be ours! So they got hold of him and murdered him,
and threw his body out of the vineyard.” (Mark 12.1-8, JBP)

By the time the listeners realised that the story was about
them, it had got under their radar in a way that a sermon would not have done; they
were hooked, waiting for the dénouement.Another medium would have put their backs up and they would have stopped
listening before ever the point was made.

Jesus understood the power of story, and so did the Bible
writers.Last month I looked at the
Bible as literature, and made reference to John as the writer’s writer of the
New Testament.Whether he is reiterating
one of Jesus’ own stories, (as in chapter 10. 1-5) or recounting a story about
Jesus (as in chapter 4), his vibrant prose brings the scene to life.

But the Bible is also good source material for other
writers, and many have drawn from it. From Milton’s “Paradise Lost” or Browning’s
“A Death in the Desert” to some contemporary writers who produce imaginative
versions of the Biblical narratives, authors have for generations been inspired
by the Bible.

I used to read John’s account of the Samaritan woman’s
encounter with Jesus at Jacob’s Well, and wonder how it should sound.Did Jesus say, “The man you now have is NOT
your husband”?Or did He say, “The man
you now have is not YOUR husband”?And
if the latter, whose husband was he?Who
was the other woman?What was her
story?We get a snapshot of the
transformation that Jesus brought into the Samaritan woman’s life, but how did
her story continue?It was these
tantalising questions, which John leaves unanswered, that led to me meditating
on this chapter for many months, and eventually writing my own imaginative
fiction, The Well Is Deep, based on it.

By using story to convey who Jesus is, we may find ourselves
getting under the radar of readers who would never pick up a Bible, and
introducing them to the Jesus they might otherwise not meet.

Ros Bayes has 6 published and 3
self-published books, as well as some 3 dozen magazine articles to her
credit. She is the mother of 3 daughters, one of whom has multiple
complex disabilities, and she currently works for Through the Roof (www.throughtheroof.org) as their Training Resources Developer, and loves getting paid to write about disability all day. You can find her blog at http://rosbunneywriting.wordpress.com and her author page at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ros-Bayes/e/B00JLRTNVA/. Follow her on Twitter: @rosbwriting.

Thank you, ladies. I love the power of story. I decided over this summer to read only fiction. I will blog about it next month. It will be interesting to see what influence it has on my thought-processes and how it affects my current WIP, my second novel taken from a Biblical source.